


Martin’s battle plan

by lenioia



Series: Think of... Martin [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Season/Series 02, not in that order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenioia/pseuds/lenioia
Summary: He’s seen enough of his moods to trust that smile to last. That’s why yesterday he hadn’t waited for Jon to be back. He just couldn’t bear to see that smile extinguished so soon and fresh suspicions raising in its place. He left him the best tea he could and fled.Martin is back at the Institute after their conversation about his faked CV - before things had time to cool down.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Think of... Martin [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176419
Comments: 3
Kudos: 46





	1. Martin’s battle plan

**Author's Note:**

> Thought to add some non canon angst & fluff to the first part. Mid season two, with some hints (Martin's mother) further, but nothing specific.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sight of the Institute doesn’t help. Once, it did. He would see the Institute façade and think, in a few minutes, he’ll be making Jon a tea and go say good morning.

The sight of the Institute doesn’t help.

Once, it did. He would see the Institute facade and think, in a few minutes, he’ll be making Jon a tea and go say good morning. And probably get back some grumpy sound, but a grumpy sound he was fond of. Given how often Jon slept at his desk, it almost counted as bringing him breakfast in bed, didn’t it? A few times he’s been lucky enough to catch him still asleep. Jon’s spine would disagree about considering a night on a cold desk a lucky event, but since every other scenario with a sleeping Jon next to him was unreachable daydreaming, he still filed it under sheer luck.

And then, there’ll be Sasha and Tim and their banter and embarrassing questions, and he’ll forget he shouldn’t even be there, and he’ll just be, happy. He’s been happy.

Long past now. After yesterday’s… still he doesn’t know what to call it, he’s spent half of the night blaming himself for his part in how past that happier time they were.

He shouldn’t have been there. He was, because he constantly failed to get a job in a normal way and started to lie.

He went into Vittery’s basement, because he failed to complete his work in a normal way and resolved to just break into a building.

He came across Gertrude’s body, because he failed to stay with his friends in danger and rushed away blindly.

Failure after failure, he has brought Prentiss upon them, and then, Sasha was stabbed, Tim is still trying to make his face look normal, and Jon, well. Jon didn’t even have time to process his wounds back from the hospital before Martin threw the weight of Gertrude’s murder on his still bleeding shoulders.

Everything that has befallen them had its starting point in Martin failing at something.

There’s a clang, some car passing over a manhole, and he remembers he’s still sitting in his parked car on the opposite side from the Institute’s entrance, eyes closed to trap tears inside. At least it is Saturday and it is before dawn. There’s no one around to witness his weary misery.

Even his failure to write a letter to his mother has had consequences.

He never meant to bring harm to his friends. But even if he’s just the oblivious butterfly who flapped its wings, can those caught in the resulting tornado forgive him?

Probably not, he had thought yesterday, when Jon had started to downright yell at him.

Finally.

After all the lies, the unsaid accusations, the distrust. After uncountable instances of imagining all the terrible ways this eventual conversation would go, all the guilt and venom that would be thrown at him, seeing it happening for real felt like a relief. It would end badly, it always ended badly, but at least it would end.

He just confessed about his CV and braced himself. Jon, that blamed him for wrong page footers like they could collapse the veritable pillars of research, faced with the full confirmation he’s been an incompetent and a liar since day 0. The world didn’t contain enough tea leaves to make up for that.

It went in the only way he didn’t imagine.

Jon listened. And then smiled.

No rage, no blaming, no belittling, not even thinking about it. Just, immediately, “I believe you”. Like when he escaped from Prentiss with no other proof than a can of smashed worms, and Jon didn’t even wait to press the stop button on the recorder, before he gave up the only comfort he had at the institute to keep him safe.

Jon smiled. A full smile, the first time ever he had witnessed Jon truly smiling. Badly hidden behind his dark fingers, telling him “just between _us_ ” in a tone of voice that. A soon as he could, he fled to storage room and barricaded for half an hour and still failed to process that.

He has spent the other half of the night thinking about that smile.

God, if he had fought, every day for weeks, to try and find literally anything that could pull a single thin dry smirk out of Jon’s exhausted face, failing (he’s starting to see a pattern here) and worrying because each time Jon seemed to loosen up just a little, soon after a cold distance was back full force like there was barbed wire growing out of him.

He’s seen enough of his moods to trust that smile to last. That’s why yesterday he hadn’t waited for Jon to be back. He just couldn’t bear to see that smile extinguished so soon and fresh suspicions raising in its place. He left him the best tea he could and fled.

Which brings him to this early morning visit to the Institute, because it is Saturday, and he’s supposed to go and see his mother, but when he left, his head was so much of a mess that he’s brought home books he was supposed to leave at the Institute and left there his phone charger and wallet and he’s lucky no one asked for his driver license while on his way this morning.

It is still so early, but since he hasn’t slept the whole night, he’s better to use what’s left of his wakefulness to make the long drive to the care home until there is little traffic. He has no clue how he would make it back later, with whatever his mother will say piled up on top of everything else, but for the moment, he needs to have something to do to focus on.

Enter, put down files, take wallet, back to his car. What he does not need, is to think at the chance of Jon being there, because his day is already too much as it is, and it is five in the morning. He cannot be here already - or shouldn’t be here anymore.

He makes a point to be quick and silent and to keep his eyes fixed in front of him while he walks down the corridor toward the Archives. But he has spent too much time watching Jon’s door, gauging the best times to enter, and he knows the meaning of every shade and shadow on these frozen glass door panels. His peripheral vision is more than enough to instantly decode the purplish blob in the bottom half as Jon asleep on his desk.

He tries, to unknow the information. He reaches his desk, takes his stuff and turns and. And realize how unforgivingly chilling the damn place is this early in the morning. That Jon’s coat is dark gray, but the blob is purple, and that’s the color of the threadbare jumper Jon was wearing the last two days, much likely the only thing still clean enough to wear he had laying around.

Martin’s heart goes numb for a long moment. Then he does what he always does when he has no better clue. Heads to the breakroom, readies the kettle. And then he has to wait for the water to boil and he doesn’t even know who the tea is for.

He cannot handle this now. He cannot handle a completely unpredictable drained Jon and whatever complicated discussion may follow. Was any part of that smile even remotely related to Jon wanting to trust him? Or was it because he could finally stop wasting his time on something as irrelevant as Martin and move on to the next suspect?

Martin’s hand hovers next to his own favorite tea box. A last attempt at going away without trying to offer care that’s just going to be rebuffed.

He has to go and see his mother. To offer care that’s going to be rebuffed but at least he already knows that. No hope will be crushed in the process. He has his consolidated path of long drive, bitter remarks, sobbing in the care home underground parking space, trying to be back home without his state of mind leading him to a car crash somewhere. How can he have some heart left to spare for Jon?

The shiny surface of the hob is reflecting his beaten expression.

Back in the happier times, Tim would have called him on it. “The only Tim’s approved pining is cunning pining! Down with the mopping, on with a battle plan!”. Tim’s not doing it anymore, but Martin still remembers. Someone has to, or there’ll be only ruins left.

The kettle calls, promising warmth in the cold air.

His mother doesn’t need warmth right now.

She’s looked after, fed, rested, not hunted by spooky things. He’s doing all he can to keep her that way. It is enough, it will have to be enough for today. For once, he needs, he wants, to give priority to someone else.

The usual mug is not there, so he picks his own, the other half of the pair, with an enameled shoreline. Rooibos, vanilla, milk and plenty of honey, because he’s not even certain Jon had anything for dinner.

He stops just for a moment in front of the door to focus on that battle plan. Jon can glare and hiss and grow spines how much he likes, but Martin’s not going to buy any of that, and is not allowing him to stay at the Institute a minute longer. Jon is going to find himself home, neatly tucked into bed, before he has time to realize what hit him. Blackwood’s orders.


	2. Martin’s jacket

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin comes forward, keeping against the shelves, mug held in both hands, so if Jon wakes up suddenly, he won’t think he was creeping in with evil intent. Another careful step, and then he is close enough to see the side of Jon not facing the door. He has barely time to put the mug down on the desk corner before the scene in front of him hits.

The door opens, quietly. Martin knows how to be silent.

There he is, his spiny sleeping beauty. Head and arms on the desk, face turned away from the door.

Another sight that does not make him happy like it once did. The cold lights are on, dusty books opened around and under him, sheets fallen on the floor. No coat, no scarf, no trace of any food. The air is damp and freezing. Jon is certainly not the best when it comes to express care for people, but what he does to himself is another level of disregard entirely. It’s almost painful to watch. A still, thin lump of ragged clothes and unkept hair, thrown over a cold desktop with less consideration than the statement folders that surround him.

Martin comes forward, keeping against the shelves, mug held in both hands, so if Jon wakes up suddenly, he won’t think he was creeping in with evil intent. Another careful step, and then he is close enough to see the side of Jon not facing the door. He has barely time to put the mug down on the desk corner before the scene in front of him hits.

The other mug, the one that Martin left him yesterday before fleeing, is standing there, empty. One side against Jon’s cheek, the opposite side tightly cradled into his hand, his other arm wrapped around it like… it takes a few seconds for Martin’s brain to allow himself the thought. Like Jon felt asleep pressing his mug as close to his face as possible.

Martin’s hand shot up to clamp his mouth and drown the sound of a sob. His throat closes almost completely while he stares at Jon, at his tormented expression, at how his whole being is coiled around Martin’s mug like there’s nothing else left.

For a long minute he fights against tears that seems determined to sting no matter how many times he blinks his eyes. It’s not the moment to turn into a puddle, he needs to regain a semblance of stability, wake up Jon, have him drink something hot and bring him out of this damned place before he gets ill.

Denial. He needs denial right now to function. Jon had a nightmare and clung in his sleep to the first random thing around. That must be it. Nightmare, casual object. Nothing to do with the mug owner. Random object. Random, accidental, unintentional, meaningless.

Ok. His breathing resumes operations, his throat unties. He tests his voice. The first “Jon” comes up feeble, but the second is almost level. The third “Jon?” is louder, and the fourth even more, but nowhere enough to pull him out of his slumber. The first brain cell that traitorously suggests “kiss him awake” gets mercilessly deactivated. For everyone’s sanity, adding _any_ touch to the equation is very out of question at the moment. After some consideration, he decides to pull the mug.

It takes more force than expected, which says something about how tightly Jon was holding it, and the sudden loss startles him awake. His eyes shot open with a vengeful glare, like someone is trying to steal one of his own bones and he’s going to incinerate them on the spot along with their Leitner’s. Martin prays for the usual stream of snappiness to follow and signal that everything in the world is normal again.

It is not. As soon as Jon’s eyes focus on Martin, they brighten and widen up like he’s seen…. Martin remembers that same expression, a few weeks ago, when he _almost_ managed (what a pretty substitute for failed) to have Jon came all the way to the tea kiosk. But of course, while trying too hard to not look like he was keeping an eye on him, he had lost him in the crowd. And when he’s found him again, Jon was staring at him, like he was suddenly seeing him, seeing in him something… good?

He also remembers how it ended. Jon’s face clouding, anger raging deep inside but not a single word from him surfacing for the whole day, and Martin’s heart clogged with hope shards.

Jon’s features begin to shift, and Martin readies himself for the worst.

But it’s a fit of cough. And then another, and another harsher, while he starts to shiver. He tries to press his arms against his ribs to suppress the fits and to gather what little warmth he has left, then turns away from Martin to cough harder, bent toward the floor, fully shuddering.

Jon is not going to be able to drink tea while trembling like this. And Martin is the only other warm thing in the whole room, so he circles the desk, kneels next to Jon, and unbuttons his old cyan jacket.

He takes it out and offers it, even if he’s sure it’s going to see it smacked away, but again, today the world has no business with normality.

Jon literally _dives_ into the lined jacked as soon as he spots it. And almost drowns in it, sleeves covering his hands, front large enough he can fold it double. As soon as his chilled hands manage to wrap himself completely, he braces himself, head half inside the sweater’s woolen border, seeking warmth.

Martin realizes he’s not going to see the end of the day. That probably Jon has finally noticed his completely out of control crush and determined the quickest way to be rid of Martin was to look fond of him once and just watch Martin auto combust into oblivion. He’s not even sure anymore this is reality. Maybe he felt asleep at the wheel while driving to the care home, crashed, and, lacking any happy memory to flash before his eyes while he’s dying, his brain has decided on a selection of especially wild daydreams.

There is no other possible explanation as to why he’s looking at Jonathan Sims hugging himself within his cyan sleeves - it looks so much like Martin’s arms have detached to go and embrace him it hurts - eyes closed like he’s tasting any lingering remain of Martin’s bodily warmth while he absorbs it. The cyan of his sweater almost seems to brighten up against Jon’s brown skin and he’s breathing inside the neck’s border, his lips brushing against the woolen lined interior, and Martin’s does not know how the universe thinks he can wear the thing again without melting.

A soon as Martin gets its sweater back, he’s going to dive into it and hug himself pretending it’s Jon’s arms still inside of it, and burrow his face exactly where Jon’s is now, shut his eyes like he’s doing, and breath in any lingering remnants of Jon’s smell just like Jon’s probably inhaling his and he is definitely going to have a stroke and die now if he follows this line of thought to the conclusion that Jon is behaving exactly like a love struck Martin would.

So, it’s denial time again. Jon is cold, he’s just warming up. It could have been its coat, if it was around, the storage room blanket, even one of Elias’s luxurious scarfs that come in monthly, every time from a different continent. Just being cold and the closest warm piece of wrap. Nothing to do with the cloth owner. Random fabric. Random, utilitarian, inconsequential.

There, back to reality.

Jon is pulling himself together, cough almost gone, and Martin reaches for the hot cup. Then realizes than Jon may not like to find a Martin kneeled just a few inches from him, staring adoringly like a Nativity mage with an offering of tea. Or more like the good cow trying to warm him with his breath.

So, he straightens up before trying his luck with forming words again.

“Here, Jon”

Jon’s eyes open again, but Martin’s face is way upward and they land on Martin’s hands. A long moment pass before he takes the mug with what little emerges of his fingers out of Martin’s sleeves. He takes a long sip, then sit back properly, finds his glasses on the desk and slowly rebuilds his Head Archivist face. Thoughts and worries gather back on his features.

Back to reality, of course.

“Why are you here, Martin?”

Because here is where you are, Martin doesn’t answer, again, and again, it feels like an examination. But he has a battle to fight and a boss to scold, so he carries on.

“I died here of hypothermia and became a ghost. I haunt the Archives to prevent my fate to befall others”

“It was just a quick nap, it’s not like I spent the night like this”

Is would be enraging if it wasn’t endearing, seeing someone who has made refuting stuff the mission of his life, trying to sell something so outrageously disprovable just by glaring out of clothes twice his size.

“Only because I found you before dawn”

Jon digs is phone out from under a pile of folders and finally gets in his head what time it is. It doesn’t help.

“What are you doing here”

Martin takes a moment to seek for a lie that could be more believable than the reality, but it is too weary of lying. He’s not going to start again.

“Forgot my wallet and phone charger, came back to take them”

“At half past five in the morning? Must have been a night, something with Tim?” Jon spits, almost routinely.

“I couldn’t sleep, okay?”

Martin’s tone comes out louder and harsher than he planned, and Jon stops in his tracks, his eyes back on Martin. Dark, deep, guilty.

“It is my fault, isn’t it?”

Martin fiddles with his hands before replying, sincere, but soft.

“Yes”

Jon looks away immediately and sits in silence, staring at the two empty mugs like he’s questioning witnesses. Then something changes (denial is having a night here) and sadness grows in his eyes.

“You don’t need to worry about your CV. I’ll keep my word. I’m not telling Elias, or anyone else”

“It’s not… Jon, it’s not that, I am…” he fights to continue, then to stop, then the sleepless night hits and it’s out before he can find anything safer to finish that sentence “worried for you. I don’t know how to convince you to talk to us again, how can I stop you from being like… this”

“I am not crazy Martin. I have very valid reasons to not believe in... to not believe blindly in people from the Institute. This is bigger than it seems. I will tell you what I’ve found when I can, but meanwhile you need to stop trying to babysit me like I am the problem here, and trust me to find out the truth”

“Jon… Did you have dinner?”

“What?”

“That’s a very simple question. Did you eat _anything_ after the slice of pizza I brought you yesterday for lunch?”

“What ever this has to do with Gertrude”

“You’re asking me to trust you with singlehandedly dismantling some paranormal conspiracy and apprehend a murderer! Jon, I cannot trust you with _eating_! I cannot trust you with _cutlery_ , and now I cannot even trust you to survive a night on your own! How can you possibly think anyone is going to believe anything you find or say while you…” he gestures at him at large, trying to find something not too offensively specific to address his miserable state. He fails to notice how this may sound before he says it. “Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

“Well forgive me if that’s not as easy for _me_ as it for _you_ ”

Martin listens to the tapes. Due diligence. He heard Tim’s statement after Prentiss. He doesn’t need to see his glacial face and clenched teeth to know Jon faults him for running away in the tunnels. Of course, he does. Every time he shaves and looks at his unblemished face, he remembers how he’s been the only one unscathed by the danger he has attracted. How empty his claim of looking after Jon is. He’s not the one who carried him out of the tunnels, he was not the one at his side when he faced Prentiss. _Keep him._ _He will want to be there when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives._ But he wasn’t there. He’s a failure even by the standards of an evil hive queen.

There’s silence. Not much left to say, really. Jon is looking away and Martin knows he has nothing better to offer than vacating the place. _Blessed relief if you ask me._


	3. Martin’s car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon aimed at him four more words than strictly needed, and that’s Jon’s for sorry.

Martin is halfway the corridor when Jon calls.

“Your jacket…”

Martin stops, but doesn’t turn, still trying to dress his wounds. “Where’s your coat?”

“Ah, somewhere in the library, I… Rosie comes at nine for a couple of hours, I’ll ask her to open”

“Keep it. My car’s just across the street, I’m going home, won’t need it”

Silence, again. Martin waits for a moment, then resumes walking away. Jon’s voice reaches him barely, when he’s already at the end of the corridor.

“Try to rest Martin”

Which is like double standards in a mirror, wishing to others the things he’s denying to himself. Martin turns when Jon is already going back to his office, limping, leaning against the corridor wall. His sleeping habits are not helping his scars. And still, he’s not going home nor getting any food better than leftover cookies, if Martin leaves him. Again.

Maybe this battle is not lost yet. Jon aimed at him four more words than strictly needed, and that’s Jon’s for sorry. Martin breathes in, slowly. Better get hurt trying than get hurt leaving.

“Let me drive you home. Then I’ll know you’ll rest, and I will rest too”

Jon doesn’t fire back immediately. Just stops, thinking, keeping himself upright against the wall, fidgeting with the sleeves like there’s a whole world war going on inside of him.

“I'm not… trying to woo you into some trap, I just took the car because I planned to go out of town, but I’m too tired anyway… but not too tired I mean, it’s just a couple of miles to…”

“Okay”

Martin’s head struggles to parse the warmth and uncertainty in the voice who said it. The owner of which is presently clutching the hem of his sleeves in his hands, and Martin hurries to ascribe it to random fidgeting with the first thing in his hands, that is obviously the thing currently around his hands, which has nothing to do with the owner of the hems Jon’s fingers are so busy caressing.

But he’s never washing that sweater again. He’ll just keep it in its flat and adore it shamelessly.

“Just… I just need a moment to… gather and file away stuff. Is that acceptable?”

“Yes, it is. I’ll be in the breakroom” _trying to glue back my broken pieces, while you finish overthinking whatever is troubling you so much_. Martin knows it’ll be a while, for both of them, so just makes another tea for himself, and some more to spare.

Jon limps a few times back and forth in the corridor while he waits. Bathroom, Rosie’s desk, Archives with stacks of folders. He’ll crawl on his hands until they are worn out before asking for help, observes Martin, trying to not get caught staring. Jon is not perfect, he’s actually quite a mess of late, but Martin is sure, even now, there is nothing in the world that can outstubborn Jon. And it’s as maddening as he loves him for that. He’s like ice and fire, together but never mixing into lukewarm water. He writes that one down for poetry uses. Later, he’s too exhausted, if he tries now, it’ll probably end up sounding like an ode to British separated taps. Better just quietly daydream from a safe distance.

Wondering, about how a Jon in love would feel like.

Maybe Jon will never allow himself to be. Maybe it’s not something he does. But… giving how much intense he can be about things like academic research, and page footers, stuff that usually drains life out of people, well. It would be a sight, if that much passion and fire was ever to be directed towards a person.

_Flying too high again, Martin?_

_Just not happening, you know, never towards you, you and your little empty lies you alone believe,_ he suddenly hears in each voice who has ever detailed him his worth, or lack thereof. Jon’s included. He tries to stop the thoughts busying himself with some clean-up in the kitchen instead. Something his level. The kitchen feels cold, and as time passes without Jon coming out of his office, forgotten.

It’s past seven, and Martin is still sitting by the small kitchen table along with the empty chairs, considering himself as part of the furniture, by the time he hears a small noise.

Jon is leaning in the doorframe, still bundled in Martin’s jacket, the overlapped front kept in place by the shoulder strap of his messenger bag, heavy of stuff he’s apparently decided to bring home. His legs, wrapped in a pair of dark gray skinny jeans and plain short boots, seem thinner than usual under the thick lined jacked. He looks like his brain could shut down at any moment out of weariness.

“I…” Jon starts and then just trails off guiltily, almost shrinking away, probably attributing Martin’s downcast expression to his own behavior.

Martin hurries to put on a kinder expression. This morning is the more approachable (between quotes) Jon has been in weeks. Probably it is just because he’s at the drunk phase of exhaustion. Martin prays it is not because he’s not coping with his obsessions anymore and he’s just minutes away from crumbling. Either way, he does not want to scare him into retreating away again.

And even if one and a half hour is not _just a moment_ , Martin knows Jon didn’t mean offence. He lacks an internal clock even in the best days. It’s not even the reason why Martin feels dejected, but his crush is not Jon’s fault. He’s under no obligation to reciprocate or even to make do with him. But at least he’s accepting his help.

They reach the Institute doors in silence. Martin stays close, away enough to not seem hovering, but near enough to catch him should he fall asleep in the middle of the street.

Martin’s car is, much like his sweater, an old pale blue thing with blemishes and unrepaired scratches, but still fit for his purpose. He opens the door for Jon, centralized locking was still a fancy optional when the car left the factory, also, it feels oh so romantic, his traitorous brain cell supplies.

He doesn’t look at Jon until they’re at the first red traffic light, when he turns to ask about whether he needs to pick some food on the way.

Jon is completely asleep.

Cuddled up against the side of his car, his right hand still around the seat belt, like he felt asleep mere milliseconds after buckling up.

Martin’s certainly not waking him. He guesses Jon is far more likely to need food supplies than not, and an additional detour will leave him to sleep for a few minutes longer. He reaches a small Japanese take away, which is sharing parking area with a diner and an ice parlor, next to a bus station. There is no one else so early in the morning, but the stall is open around the clock. He parks close to the kiosk, just in case Jon wakes up to find himself alone in a car in a place he doesn’t know, and leaves the engine running so the heating stays on. He’s not sure of Jon’s preferences, so he decides to err on the side of abundance. He’s supposed to eat too when he’s back to his home, given how little he managed to swallow yesterday evening.

The air is freezing, and his jacket is still on Jon, so he comes back to sit in the warm car while the cook readies his order. Exclusively because of the cold morning wind, certainly not because his traitorous brain cell is dying to stare at sleeping Jon until the sun runs out of his fuel.

He should not gaze. Jon won’t approve. It’s not right to steal his privacy like this, he determines while he’s staring, then he turns to stare better. To fix in his memory exactly where Jon’s head is resting, so he knows where to place his own head the next time he’s sobbing in the car after a visit to his mother and is desperate for anything to anchor to. Pathetic, yes, but pathetic has never stopped him. Actually, most times pathetic is what keeps him going. 

And he never gets the chance to truly observe Jon. He hasn’t shaved since the last weekend at least, but it suits him, half black and half gray like his hair. His curls are way longer than the neat haircut he had when freshly promoted, but still too short for a proper ponytail. There are a few, half undone tiny braids, keeping the bulk of his hair somehow in place, and, seriously, are these paperclips keeping in check the rest? Martin exhales and smiles.

His next discovery is the _triple_ ear piercing. Empty, now, but probably a clue to _some_ past.

There is a total of fourteen worm scars on his face and neck, most small but a few very obvious and discolored, like they’ve been poked at too much while healing. But the lines on his face seems momentarily swallower. He’s perfectly still, quietly breathing. Even with the usual disclaimers - he’s dead tired and his car is simply the first random surface close enough to lean his head on, just an uncorrelated event and not yet another instance of Jon snuggling against objects that by mere chance happens to be owned by Martin K. Blackwood - he cannot help but think he looks almost serene.

Like he feels safe.

Just 24 hours ago, it would have been unconceivable to catch Jon with his guard so low. And now he’s here, falling asleep without skipping a beat while alone with Martin, who could possibly be driving him anywhere, away from any help.

Was his binned letter to his mother troubling Jon so much? Were all his doubts about him fueled by this suspicion? Martin takes a moment to thank Trevor the tramp for failing to die at the Institute. At least Jon spit it out instead of letting it eat at him.

If only he’d known. Martin has been the only one, until now, to pay for the consequences of his faked life. Cold relationships, isolation, expectations he could not possibly meet, feeling a fraud, accepting mistreatment because it felt deserved. He’s been all on him until now. He never expected for his lies to weight on someone else.

No one has never been fussed, beside the business time and modules needed to rid their place of employment of Martin as soon as they’d found his actual self.

Nobody cared enough to feel a thing while they discarded him.

Jon threw a full tantrum and then a full smile.

And maybe he gets it, now. Maybe that’s where Tim is wrong. Jon hasn’t abandoned his assistants. You don’t obsess over people you don’t give a damn anymore. Jon does not hate them. _I cannot trust a word you say._ Jon wasn’t pushing out of spite. He was desperate to know. Jon is losing his mind over this because his assistants are too important for him to simply keep some distance and carry on. He cares. He cares so much it destroys him to distrust them. Even Martin.

He doesn’t know how Jon will be tomorrow, or even a few hours from now. His fears are hardly things that fade in one night. Half a night. A quarter of a night, at most. But now Jon trusts him to look after him while he sleeps. And maybe one day, he’ll trust Tim and Sasha again too.

So, Martin keeps staring, contented in the warm car, at his idiotic boss who cares, but demonstrates it digging into dustbins and skipping meals.


	4. Martin’s silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin in tempted to just sit there and wait for him to rest, but an unknow battered car with the engine running this early in the morning is likely to attract attention and complains from the neighbors.   
> It is time to leave him.

## Martin’s silence

Martin wakes up with a start when the kiosk owner knocks lightly at driver’s the car window. There is no knocking gentle enough to not startle him, but thankfully Jon is far too gone to notice him jerking awake. He smiles embarrassed at the kind but knowingly amused man who handles him his take-away order.

He almost regrets how close Jon’s flat is.

After his meet-ugly with Prentiss, he extorted Jon his address so they could come and check if he went missing. It takes just a couple more minutes to get there. The building is a gray affair, concrete and glass panes, external common balconies leading to the flats. The private parking area is numbered, and Martin notices Jon’s place is empty. So, he parks there, and they are arrived.

Jon is still sleeping.

Martin in tempted to just sit there and wait for him to rest, but an unknow battered car with the engine running this early in the morning is likely to attract attention and complains from the neighbors.

It is time to leave him.

But again, calling yields nothing. Not even a change in his quiet breathing. Martin’s eyes lands on the keys attached with a ring to one of Jon’s bag pockets. “BRIDAL CARRY”, urges the traitorous brain cell, attaching for clarity a mental image of a Jon in a tight white lace shirt, dramatically held up in his arms.

And now he can turn the engine and the heating off because his face his having a runaway core fission. He silently screams in his hands. No Carry, certainly No Bride, and a big Nope to semitransparent lace _why I thought semitransparent now_.

_Ok. Ok. Just keep it together a couple of minutes more._ No bridal carry shall be carried out today under no circumstances. There has to be some touch-free approach to wake him and send him his way without overstepping. He breaths in, breaths out, and then again, and tentatively looks at Jon again, hoping no more semitransparent dreams will pop in his head.

Jon’s hand is still limp near the safety belt but does not cover the release. This should do. Martin presses the button, and the sudden movement and loss of pressure around him manages to pull Jon out of his sleep. He takes a while to open his eyes and straighten, like it pains him. It probably deservedly does, having been running on little more than power naps the whole week. Martin think it better to give him a minute, so he goes and fetch the take-away from the trunk, and then comes back at Jon’s side of the car.

He’s still sat inside, looking at the sleeves covering almost completely his hands. If he’s seeing anything at all. It seems like the battle in his head has reignited. He does nothing toward leaving, so after an uncomfortable number of seconds spent awkwardly standing in front of the passenger car window, Martin quietly opens the door himself.

Jon shots a glare at the door like it has betrayed him and Martin is at a loss again. What else is he supposed to do? Close the door and just bring Jon home with him, like his boss is a lost kitten refusing to be left alone in a shelter? He tries to present the two bags, full of small labeled containers. Somehow it feels like trying to steer a cat with a bowl of croquettes.

“I thought you may use some food? It’s Japanese. You can take it all or if there is something you don’t like. Or maybe you already had something in the fridge? Just pick what you prefer and leave the rest? I like everything so for me it’s all…”

Jon’s head turns and his eyes land on Martin, directly on him, scanning, and he swallow down his ramblings. Jon is not saying anything, nor moving from where he is sat, and Martin scrambles to find an explanation. He doesn’t like what he founds.

“If… Is there anything else you wanted to ask me? Yesterday. If. Something else I’ve done troubles you. Makes you think I am… not on your side? I know you may be upset we went to Elias but… we were just worried, didn’t mean to speak ill. Didn’t know what else to do. Please just ask me?”

He hopes it is not something about Tim or Sasha. They don’t owe Jon explanations, but if it is just about himself, Martin prefers to sacrifice his privacy than to let things sink back.

The sun keeps rising, bathing the top stories of the glassy buildings around. The moon, a crisp half round in the rich blue of the cold morning sky, keeps orbiting. Jon keeps staring.

Martin feels like Jon is weighting his whole existence. Seconds and then more seconds pass, or maybe centuries, because it has become self-conscious about his expression, about how his skin is reacting to the cold, about how little he brushed his hair before tightening the ponytail this morning, about how every single freckle and crease look, now that it is almost getting a cramp with how much perfectly still he’s trying to keep his face. But when he breathes there is still a speck of movement and so he becomes conscious of every single gulp of air he takes and about the noise of the air passing through his nostrils. He’s considering going into apnea and eventually die, when finally, Jon speaks.

“I may have something to”

He swallows. It seems the battle has moved into his voice, to force words out against whatever he’s torn about.

“To tell you. Maybe I can explain some things. Better not at the Institute. If you can… But I need your word that you are not telling anyone if I do, that you will keep it to yourself. If you can come a moment in”

Martin definitely opts for apnea.

Then years of slashing down expectations to avoid the brunt of disillusion hit. He has to focus about the worst consequences first. By now, he knows good outcomes do not apply to him.

He shoves miles away the fact that Jon wants him to come in, and what he thinks first, is that Jon wants to start working again when he needs food and rest. That he may share things because his mind is clouded by exhaustion and that he will regret it later, even think Martin jumped at the chance of his vulnerable moment to syphon out information. That if anything Jon tells him, is later guessed or hinted at by Tim or, heaven forbid, Elias, Jon will assume Martin betrayed his trust and told everybody. That if any of this involves Sasha and Tim, either he’ll feel guilty of hiding stuff to Jon, or guilty of hiding stuff from his friends, and he’ll spend next week overcompensating and jumping at comments and absolutely get caught. And then he will lose Tim and Sasha too.

By the time some low oxygen level alarm overrules his consciousness and forces a breathes in, breathes out cycle, Jon has turned away, he’s standing up and leaving the car.

“I am sorry”

He pauses for a moment while he fetches his keys, and when he resumes, it’s the Head Archivist speaking.

“That was very inappropriate. You are not supposed to work on Saturdays without an overtime request, and you cannot clock in outside the Institute. Also, this” he points at the take-away bags “shall not happen again. Doing private errands for superiors is forbidden by the Institute Policy. I apologize if I gave you the impression it was necessary to do any of this to keep your employment. It is not. If anything, the opposite is. I leave you to your Saturday. I’ll see you next week”

Martin freezes. He was still pondering the previous sentence and now everything has come crashing utterly down. He sees the distance between them grow back as Jon quickly opens the building outdoor fence gate, then closes it behind him.

The loud, rough clang of the gate locking Martin outside hits him like a stab in his definitiveness.

Jon was reaching out for him, something just short of a miracle. And he has done nothing. At all. Not even dignified the offer with an answer. Jon will never ask again. It’ll all be back to boss and employee strictly by the policy book.

There is just a short path between the fence and the building entrance and Jon is going to be out of his view in a second. With no better plan, he calls out to Jon.

He stops with one foot already inside of the door. He doesn’t turn, but removes his bag, and place it on the doorstep, seemingly to keep the door open.

Martin’s face gains back some color. Then, Jon removes Martin’s jacket and briefly crosses into the grass to place it on the closest fence section.

Where Martin can take it from outside, without coming in.

Then he picks up his bag from the doorstep, and the thick door closes, swallowing his thin shape.


	5. In case you said yes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here and there he knows that come Monday morning, Jon is going to refuse even a cup of tea from him. Even that last miserable sliver of comfort Jon was accepting from him, will be out of question for good.

Martin feels so beaten and faint that it’s like he’s physically bleeding out there in the parking place. The air is cold and fresh, but he only sees stiff closed darkness around him.

It is the heart to heart, and then the tunnels, all over again.

Jon finally gets something out, then Martin panics and leaves him to his fate. And he calls out again, but again it is too late, and Jon cannot hear him anymore. And this time there will be no Tim ready to take over from his failures, to carry Jon and face dangers in his place.

Tim who was in quarantine, while he made _tea_. And suddenly the last part of what Jon said hits him fully. _If anything, the opposite is._ Here and there he knows that come Monday morning, Jon is going to refuse even a cup of tea from him. That he’ll tell he ought to stop with favors or he’s asking Elias to reassign him elsewhere. By Monday, even that last miserable sliver of comfort Jon was accepting from him, will be out of question for good.

He sees in his memory Jon sleeping clutched to his mug and he pains him so much that it snaps him out of his stillness.

He frantically scans the façade of the building, Jon will need to cross the external common balcony to reach his door. He will hear if he calls him. The whole block will hear, but he does not remotely care. Jon is still nowhere to be seen, but then Martin notices the stairs to the flats. The lift may be inside of the building hall, but the stairs are external, just like the balconies, and they start at the end of the grassy patch.

The fence gate is the only thing standing between him and Jon’s door.

He manages to remember to close his car, then he’s at the gate. He knows from Vittery’s how the chance of someone of buzzing him in is, so he doesn’t waste seconds on it, nor on checking for anyone at the windows or down the road that can spot him breaking in. He lets the bags fall inside, then he starts to climb. He occurs to him, he won’t be able to talk about any of this to Tim and Sasha. Not even if he gets himself arrested. Well, Tim has paid a price high enough for his help to Jon. This time is Martin’s turn, whatever it is.

Thankfully, the gate is a simple piece, sturdy and with no pikes, not much of a match for someone as tall as Martin, and it does not take long to reach the edge and tumble down inside. No one is screaming at him about impeding police arrival, and he continues to not give a damn about whatever he’s risking. He stops just for a second to fetch his jacket, then sprints towards the stairs.

Apartment 316, he recalls, it should be on the third floor, unless the builders were some second generation Smirke’s fanboys, or the universe at large truly despise him. It rushes up two steps at a time, still no plan in his mind. He just wants to reach Jon before there is another door between them. The last thing he wants it to be forced to stay outside his flat and _knock and knock,_ until Jon gives up and opens. Or calls the police himself.

He reaches the third balcony and scans left and right and… Jon is there. He made it. Jon is there, very slowly limping along the balcony.

Martin manages to come close enough to see he’s shivering, before Jon hears the hurried footsteps and turns. There is no rage in his face. Not even surprise. Just… sadness. Like he’s seeing something bad happen but lacks the strength to fight it.

“Who let you in” is the resigned comment. Jon is still talking to him. He can fix this. He must fix this.

“Um, no one, I just. Broke in? Kind of, I mean, didn’t really need to break anything? Besides, maybe, the law”

“Martin”

“I will!” he rushes “Keep things to myself. Until you have decided about the others. Just between us?”

Jon clutches the handrail tighter. He must be freezing in his thin jumper, but he stays still.

“I thought you had learned” Jon begins “that breaking in will just land you into trouble”

There’s a dark undertone to the sentence and Martin fears he’s going to have him thrown out of the building. But then he continues.

“It is not going to go any better for you, this time. I’m not saying this lightly, Martin. I do mean it. I have nothing but dangers to share”

Martin does not know how to begin to put into words what he feels, looking at Jon, who is trying to warn him to leave, so he won’t get hurt by whatever is hurting him so much. So, he lays down the take-away, reaches for Jon’s heavy bag, takes it from him, placing it on his own shoulder instead. Then he drapes his jacket back around Jon’s shoulders, quickly because his hands are going to just start to shake if he lingers longer. But no way he’s leaving him.

Jon slowly maneuvers his arms back in the large sleeves, and starts to walk towards his door, letting Martin free to follow.

\-----

Back before Prentiss, they’ve tried to bet on what Jon’s flat would be like. Tim made tiny floorplans for each option.

Posh inherited mansion? With ghosts desperate to get his attention with increasingly crazier paranormal activity he continues to dismiss as creative wiring and deranged spiders? An elegant and small house with some giant labyrinthic subterranean dungeon for fake statement givers? A back door to an old library that closed and was abandoned while he was still inside reading? His grandmother’s closet?

Actually, Jon’s flat comprises a tiny hall, a small, narrow kitchen and a bathroom, two more doors to a living room and a bedroom. Would made for a small, but pretty ensemble, was it rented to someone who actually knew what a home is for.

There is dust, way too little furniture, by the looks of it, leftovers from previous tenants, and a vast assortment of cardboard boxes piled in the empty spaces where more furniture was supposed to be.

Most are neatly packed and labelled in his precise handwriting, judging by the dust, unmoved since he moved in, others opened and rummaged, books just laid open on the floor around the box that had contained them. The bag and the package that was on the doormat gets added to the pile.

They should have guessed it, having had the spitting image of his flat inside the Archives. Jon’s place is just another document storage. But way colder. Wait, why?

“Jon, did you forget the heating off?”

“Not working”

“Did you stay in the Archives the whole week because it broke?”

“No, broke in… April? Manifold leaking, it was warm already, no need for it. Keeping it off to avoid flooding the place”

“What? We are in _November_! You’re going to get a cold!”

“That really tops my worries right now”

“JON”

“Look, the flats around are warm, doesn’t get colder than this, I can still turn it on for a shower, I just need to be quick and keep a bin under the pipes”

Martin would like to scream, but, not the moment. Still, he’s going to snap a few photos of the problem and find him a plumber first thing on Monday. Let’s see Institute Policy try and stop him.

Jon points him to the small kitchen, then goes fetching something from his bag.

Just at first glance, Martin spots dozens of chores that would need doing. The second Jon falls asleep, he’s going to go full housewife. Jon cannot object if he doesn’t see. For now, he places the take-away bags on a tiny table with two mismatched chairs. He starts to fetch out miso soup and vegetable rice, and then almost runs face first into catastrophe as he opens a few more containers. Looking back at him from one, is a pair of temaki whose black nori is decorated with pink salmon and red tuna _hearts_. Did his traitorous brain cell sleepwalked him back to the kiosk to add _that_ to the order? There is no temaki on the receipt… but there is a “Little gift from the house to the lovebirds” note at the end. He totally forgot there were other beings with eyes on the planet while he gazed adoringly at sleeping Jon in his car.

The kitchen gains a couple of degrees from his face and he rushes to eat away all the hearts. He is considering if it is safer to eat the crumpled receipt too when Jon comes back.

What he carries is really not something he expected to see again, which is perfect, because the surprise covers his guilty look.

“Ah, yes” begins Jon, seeing his stare “I may have lied on this… I… borrowed your tape recorder”

“Borrowed”

Jon takes a long inhale, like he’s reading himself for a jump.

“I am making copies of the statements, one that you all get access to, another with… what I kept to myself added at the end, my findings, in case, well. I will let you listen to the additional recordings”

Jon briefly closes his eyes, then his face seems to relax a bit.

“But… you keep them in your bag? Isn’t it risky?”

Jon’s lips curl up briefly.

“They’re under a floorboard in my office, usually. The side farther from the door, slightly left of the center. I brought them home… for you. In case you said yes”

Martin has lost count of the times he’s had to fight back tears this morning. His head is by now choke full of unshed tears. The moment he gets home he’s going to soak every one of his pillows just trying to process up to this moment and… there is still whatever lurks in those tapes, whether they are true dangers, or just proof of Jon’s obsession.

Jon is searching for a tape to start with, but Martin needs a moment to gather himself before the next emotional punch and given he’s now certain Jon in not going to backtrack, they can take their time.

“Wait. Not that I’m changing my mind, not at all! Just… you should eat something warm first. You skipped… I don’t want to know how many meals, and honestly, I didn’t have much appetite myself yesterday. I could really use some food before all of this”

“Right. Right. You’re not going to have much appetite left when we’re done either. Better you have something first”


End file.
